San Vicente cooperative opens doors to displaced farming families

The San Vicente Cooperative Council voted unanimously on Thursday to admit twelve displaced farming families under an emergency membership protocol, waiving the usual six-month probation period and cutting application fees by half. The families, who spent the last three years in federal relocation housing near the capital after their original plots were absorbed into a federal infrastructure corridor, are returning to Tierra Verde with depleted savings and no land of their own.

The decision marks a departure from the cooperative's usual caution on new admissions. Membership votes typically take months; the council heard testimony from the families on Wednesday and voted the following day. The move signals growing pressure on the cooperative system to absorb the human cost of federal development priorities that have displaced smallholders across the region.

The families will share cultivation rights on 340 hectares of cooperative-managed land south of San Vicente, with a guarantee of fair-price contracts for the first two harvests. The cooperative is also negotiating with the Federal Office for Cooperative Affairs to secure back-wage credits and priority access to federal seed-subsidy schemes for the displaced members.